When War Planning Fails: The Iran School Strike | Hardpoints

In Episode 37, Mike and Neal tackle one of the darkest and most consequential questions to come out of the Iran strikes: who killed 175 schoolgirls at a girls’ elementary school near the Strait of Hormuz? Early official narratives tried to muddy the waters, but the evidence points to a grim possibility—a U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile hit the school three times. So how does something like that happen?

Drawing on their firsthand military experience, Mike and Neal break down how a strike like this is actually planned. From the targeting cycle and collateral damage assessments, to prebuilt strike packages and Tomahawk mission planning, they explain the machinery behind modern warfare in terms normal people can actually follow. This is not abstract punditry—it’s two former military aviators walking through the process and showing where the chain may have broken down.

The core of the conversation is accountability. If this was not intentional, then what failed? Was outdated intelligence pulled off the shelf? Was a military facility converted into a school without the targeting package being updated? Did planners miss obvious visual cues in overhead imagery that should have identified the site as civilian? Mike and Neal argue that while war is chaotic, this kind of mistake is still preventable—and the standard for the most capable military in the world has to be higher.

They also get into the information war that followed. Why did the White House try to suggest Iran had somehow bombed its own school? Why do false narratives appear so quickly after high-casualty events? And what happens when political leaders default to spin instead of admitting error and learning from it? The episode draws a sharp line between the tragic fog of war and the refusal to tell the truth afterward.

From there, the discussion widens to the broader campaign. Mike explains why Tomahawks were likely used early in the strikes before air superiority was established, and why stand-off weapons change the nature of target verification. Then the focus shifts to the Strait of Hormuz: if one of the Navy’s basic missions is to keep sea lanes open, why is the strait still effectively closed? The guys unpack the strategic incentives facing Iran, the limits of convoy operations, the risks to merchant shipping, and why neither markets nor navies can simply wave a wand and make global energy chokepoints safe again.

The episode also includes reader mail, a quick debate over how long the Iran war may last, and the usual goods, bads, and others—from Neal dodging a DC trip for one more week, to Mike worrying that winter itself may be dying in the American West.

This one is blunt, technical, and morally serious. If you want a grounded conversation about military targeting, strategic deception, accountability in war, and the real-world consequences of getting it wrong, Episode 37 is one of the heaviest Hardpoints conversations yet.